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Quiquendone
Quiquendone is a small French town in Flanders, of 2,393 inhabitants, some thirteen and a half kilometres north-west of Audenarde and fifteen and a quarter kilometres south-east of Bruges. Geography The Vaar, a small tributary of the Escaut, runs under its three bridges still covered by ancient medieval roofs. Travellers can visit the old castle, the founding stone of which was laid in 1197 by Count Baudouin, future Emperor of Constantinople. Aldo worth a visit is the Town Hall, with Gothic windows and fine towers- some 357 feet high- whose bells are even more famous than those of Bruges and have been described as a piano in the air. Important sites are also the Stadtholder's Hall, hung with the portrait of William of Nassau by Brandon; the Rood-Loft of the Church of Saint Magloire, masterpiece of sixteenth-century architecture; the forged iron well in the centre of St. Ernulph Square, wrought by Quentin Metsys; and the mausoleum of Marie of Burgundy , daughter of Charles the Fearless, who now rests in the Church of Notre Dame of Bruges. It should also be noted that Quiquendone is famous for its whipped cream of barley sugar. Doctor Ox This town- where, up to the last century, not the slightest quarrel was ever heard, where waggoners would never swear, coach drivers never insult each other, horses never bolt, dogs never bite, catts never scratch- was chosen in 1872 as the centre for a wicked experiment conducted by a certain chemical engineer, a Dr. Ox. Under the pretext of supplying Quiquedone with a badly needed modernised lighting system, Dr. Ox built a network to distribute the lighting gas. He did not, however, use carbonated hydrogen produced from distilled coal, but a more modern substance, twenty times brighter: oxhydric gas, a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen. The Doctor managed to produce great quantities of this gas, not be employing sodium manganese (as in the system by Tessie de Motay), but simply by decomposing water with the aid of a battery that he had put together. In this manner, without the use of any complicated equipment, the Doctor could send an electric current through vast water resevoirs, decomposing the liquid through vast water resevoirs, decomposing the liquid into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen would be guided to one side; the hydrogen- double the amount of oxygen- towards the other. Both gases were kept in seperate containers, carefully sealed, as their mingling would have provoked the most terrible explosion. Guided by a maze of tubes, they finally combined and produced a brilliant flame, the light of which could easily be compared to that of electricity. This splendid gas provoked not only unanimous admiration in Quiquendone, but also some less agreeable secondary effects; the character, the temperament, the ideas of the inhabitants of Quiquendone were deeply affected by it, and from calm, self-contained citizens they became aggressive and irritable thugs. Even the domestic animals turned into savage beasts, unbearable and dangerous. In the orchards, parks and gardens, the plants also showed signs of curious change. The bushes became trees; the seeds, as soon as they were planted, would show curly green heads and in just a few hours become enormous vegetables. The asparagus sprang some two feet high; the artichokes blew up as large as melons; the melons as huge as pumpkins; the pumpkins as big as the church bell, some nine feet across. The cauliflowers were thickets; the mushrooms, umbrellas. Two people were needed to finish eating a strawberry and four could hardly manage a pear. Flowers grew so quickly that on one occasion the gardener in Quiquendone almost fainted when he found that his tulipa gesneriana ''was serving as a nest to a whole family of robins. THe entire town came to admire this unique specimen, which was promptly rechristened ''tulipa quiquendonia. But among the many changes were some that affected the health of the population. The number of indigestions increased threefold (people ate six meals instead of two), as did cases of drunkenness, gastritis and ulcers, and many diseases of the nerves. Finally, affected by all these transformations, the inhabitants of Quiquendone decided to attack the neighbouring village of Virgamen, on the feeble excuse that in 1135 a Virgamen cow had crossed the border and came to graze on a Quiquendonian field. While the inhabitants were on their way to wage war against the people of Virgamen, a terrific explosion took place in the main gas resevoir, putting an end to Dr. Ox's experiment in lighting and perhaps to Dr. Ox himself. Nowadays Quiquendone is lit in the normal way and the town offers all the facilities a traveller is likely to expect. Category:Places Category:France Category:Pages